Sorry to everyone who tried to comment on this blog in the last week or so and got an error message in return.

My group of Web AddiCTs have had a thorough look at the problem and told me the problem was the result of a freak timing coincidence on the comments database:

What happens is the database tries to execute 2 operations on a specific table at precisely the same time and the database sits in deadlock not knowing which process to execute forever. It's really rare, since were talking about exactly the same time done to the microsecond and there are supposed to be controls in the database to prevent it from happening, but it sometimes slips.

Eish.

I've got some smart people from Afrihost working on it, and I'll start posting again as soon as it's sorted.

UPDATE: Afrihost didn't have a backup of the database, so I lost all my comments :-( As Henk said to me:

"There are 2 kinds of people: Those who make backups and those who haven't had a full system failure yet"